Unto Me it Came
by MorgaRoths
Summary: Beauty and the Beast re-telling, set in contemporary times. Just having fun with it.
1. Basic History pt1

Every little town has its secrets. Every family too, for that matter. Ours are just a little stranger than most.

Outside of my town there is a large estate. No one knows how long it's been there, and I never dared ask. My dad was caretaker there, and so was his dad, and so was his dad, and so was his dad, and so was his dad, and you get the idea.

My brother Ryan agreed to take on the job, but he wanted a few years to go to the local college and do some traveling. He didn't want to be tied down to the estate before he'd seen the outside world. Dad was fine with that, but then I had to agree to take over for Ryan until he got back. I didn't have the heart to say no.

I was six when I started working there, helping tend the grounds, check the gardens, clip hedges, anything and everything you could imagine inside stone and iron walls. I couldn't understand why Mr. Savage (the owner) didn't settle for a nice white picket fence like everyone else, or a wooden panel privacy screen if he didn't want people spying on him. Dad just shrugged when I asked and said that the walls had been there as long as he had been alive, probably longer. My great grandfather mentioned having to find an old fashioned stone mason to fix them, but I had only been four when he died and that story was my only memory of him. I wished I could ask him many questions, but that is life.

I was seven when I got board of being in the bushes and decided to walk inside. I was really brat, my choice sadly. Grandma said it was a resilient will, and my mother said it was just plain stubbornness. Either way, I was a brat that refused to be broken. So I opened the door, and walked in.

At first, I only stayed in the hall and looked at all the pictures. It took me about a month to get brave enough to try the breakfast room, then the music room, dining hall, library, kitchens, sitting rooms, and the indoor garden. I wondered who looked after that, but of course I'd never ask my dad. It would be admitting that I had broken the only rule: Never approach the house.

Man, had I broken it. I would tear through my work and practically take over the ground floor. I was never sure if it was a good or a bad thing that Dad never found out on his own. At seven, I would have given anything for it to have been Dad doling out the punishment. Now, I can laugh and be content with what happened.

I was making myself right at home in the refrigerator, when a rustle sounded behind me. I turned to see the most horrific sight I'd ever glimpsed. With a scream, I tore out of the kitchen, into the servants' hall, around to the hallway and towards the door. There was a loud grunting behind me, and a blur shot past, landing in my path. With a howl I crumpled, covering my head with my arms.

"Get up, I won't kill you. Tempting at that may be. Stop crying, get up!" A giant voice reverberated shaking my teeth. When I didn't budge, his huge hands grabbed my shoulders and lifted me to eye level. The eyes were white with grey where color should be, and I found I couldn't look away from their terrifying emptiness. "Good, you have some fear left. Do you know what your have done?"

"Trespassed, sir."

"Do you know what happens to trespassers?"

"Mostly, or just in this house?" I bleated.

He seemed to smile, three inch long teeth exposed. "In this house."

"They're gutted, sir."

A sound like purring began, and then a growl, followed by a barking laugh. He laughed until tears fell from those hideous eyes. "Perhaps, a few centuries ago. But I've mellowed, you see. No, today, I think you'll find out what bond slaves are." With that he carried me to the door, and called my father to the porch.

I half expected Dad to shake or even faint at the sight, but apparently this monster was not new. However, seeing me there made my dad go purple with rage. "I have nothing to say, sir. Whatever damages, I can pay for."

"No, she will pay for skulking and for eating my food. She must learn that every choice has a result. You will deal with her at home, but when she comes here, she is at my disposal. You understand, Mr. Gather?"

"I understand."

"Good. Your work is done for the day, now go."

Needless to say, I received some severe lectures on the way home, as well as a strict punishment and lifestyle change. I did not get my way at the drop of a hat thereafter, and I began to understand goodness for its own sake.

Mr. Savage drove home the point for months. It started out with the bond slave duties he had promised. I was grateful he hadn't fired my father, (though I couldn't understand why ever not) and did what I was told without a murmur. I cleaned everything my seven-year-old arms could reach, cooked everything I could comprehend out of a recipe book, and was forced to follow that dreadful man around for hours. Presumably, it was to scare me as I looked at him, since I served no practical purpose.

When I was eight, I had actually learned to like some of my duties, and began to become attached to the greenhouse. Mr. Savage was a rose fanatic, and I was forbidden to touch his roses inside or out on pain of death. I didn't doubt his word, and kept my fingers on the marigolds and veggies.

At the ages of nine and ten, he began handing me books to read over the weekend. I didn't dare go back on Monday without at least five sixths of it completed. I was the only speed reader in my school as a result, although Dad pulled me out and handed me over to Mr. Savage. His reasons were simple. Mr. Savage could teach me more than any classroom, and besides, I was to be available as retribution.

That was when I learned was Stockholm syndrome was. The affection or sympathy for one's captor or oppressor. Grandma called my complacent behavior towards Mr. Savage that, and railed at my parents for not getting me a job sweeping at the burger joint. She said all my spirit was broken and I would be a pitiful person without personality.

Well, my spirit had changed, but hadn't been broken.


	2. Basic HIstory pt2

Over the years, Mr. Savage and I became good friends. He was a good teacher and I learned many valuable things from him. In time, I didn't miss my friends from school at all, and would actually try to hide if I saw them coming. Mom got really tired of it and threatened to call a therapist if I didn't shape up. I knew what that meant. One word about the centuries old monster in a giant castle who was my best friend ever and I'd be in a padded cell for life.

I made an effort to be courteous, but people annoyed me. I know they didn't mean to, half the time they didn't know they were doing it. I just subconsciously compared everyone I met to Mr. Savage. Or my dad and brother. Either way, no one measured up.

In the summer I worked outside with dad until lunch, and then I'd go in and fix something for myself and Mr. Savage. We'd talk over politics, world news, local news, and so on. I'd usually pass on any news about Ryan. After lunch, I'd clean up the kitchen, do any chores that were needed, and charge for the enormous piano to practice for an hour.

After practice, I had lessons in the library. Mr. Savage was a devout book collector, and I was well on my way to falling into the same behavior. Aside from the few subjects that can't be taught with the written word, everything was done via literature. I learned more about science, history, and life in general in that room than I'd have ever gotten from a common classroom. Besides, who else could lay claim to a giant, fur covered monolith who knew your entire family history from the time they had come over on a boat?

Eventually, I worked up the courage to ask him what had caused his terrible appearance. I guess I was about fifteen at the time.

He looked dreadfully sad, and ran a twisted, clawed hand down his face slowly. "I caused it. My arrogance and pride worked their curse on me, and this is my fate until the time comes for me to die. This is what I have tried to change in you, for in you, Sandy, I saw myself. There is no truer mirror than another human being. The last thing I wished for a child of the family that has always stood by me is my fate."

"You can't get surgery, or, kiss someone?" I felt really sad too. This was the twenty-first century, surly there was something that could be done.

He smiled grimly, and shook his massive head, the braid down his back writhing. "If it were only so simple. It was one of your great grandfathers who spared my life, at great cost to himself. I was left this way by my actions, cursed by a common fool. But your ancestor, he agreed to see to it that I should live as long as his descendants were there to care for my home. He bound himself and his children to me forever, and so it is that your family has stayed. This is why you all share my fate, my good and my bad. My life shall end one day, but only with a wife. My days are bound to hers, but my face cannot change."

I knew it wasn't the neat kind of immortality that the movies and comics always talked about. It was the kind that hung heavy on a soul, which reminded you of your failures and faults. He had to watch generations of my family die and rise up to stay beside him so that he could live to change himself. But now that he had, there was no one to see. I knew I could have agreed to marry him, I even brought it up. We were too much alike, he said, and binding someone so like himself from my family line to his existence would be a worse sin that the others.

He was content with my friendship, as I was in his, and that was enough for us.

That was when two new people moved into my life.


	3. Meeting the Neighbors

3

The house we lived in was divided into three apartments, ours being in the middle. The elderly couple on one side took in their granddaughter after her parents split up. The family on the other side left and a strange man moved in. He went to work at the police department, and I hardly ever saw him. Mom and the grandmother next door decided that Alice and I were made to be BFFL, and set up a series of play dates.

To be fair, Alice was even less thrilled about a girl her own age than I was. We agreed that we hated each other, and got along quite nicely after that agreement had been reached. Pleased we had found a 'friend' our respective guardians relaxed their vigil.

All in all, it was a handy arrangement. We went everywhere together, lending the illusion that we were close. Yet, for the most part, we completely ignored each other. It helped to have someone to go the movies with, or to walk around town with, even study with on those few occasions we had to cram. Alice and I had known each other for about a year when she asked me why I didn't go to public school.

I gave my standard reply. "The guy we work for tutors me."

"I wish someone would tutor me, I hate school." Alice sighed. "It's all just so you can see your friends, really, and I don't have any."

"What happened to your parents?" I asked.

"Divorced and neither one wants me." She said simply.

I felt bad for her. I had awesome parents, plus a brother and grandmother. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked."

She shrugged. "It's not a secret."

After that, we started talking more like normal girls and less like neighbors of convenience. I told her my employer's name, and that my family had worked for his ever since anyone could remember. I told her he was my best friend, and I felt sorry that he was 'sick' and couldn't leave his estate. Alice asked if she could come and cheer him up sometime, but I said that all depended on his treatments over the next year. Yes, I'm an awesome liar.

Somehow, I wished she could meet Mr. Savage. I thought he might like her, since she didn't have my temper.

It was about six months later that her grandparents were hit by a drunk driver, and we had to go pick them up at the police station. Their car was totaled, and they were worried about the cost as the other driver was uninsured, and theirs was likely to haggle.

Us two sixteen-year-olds just stood there in the entry, just waiting for someone to notice us and tell us where to go. It happened to be our neighbor, the one we didn't know.

"You the kids from my apartment building?" He asked. We allowed we were, and he demanded, "What do you want?"

It was the first time I had gotten a good look at him, his black, shoulder length hair, blue eyes, and the round face was set in a perpetual frown. He wasn't tall, but powerfully built, with broad hands. His shirt said is name was Peters. Alice wasn't able to respond to the onslaught, but I swallowed and answered.

"Her grandparents were in the accident, and we need to pick them up. Can you tell us where to go?"

He shrugged, and motioned us to follow. We went downstairs where the sheriff was explaining the whole ordeal to them and what would happen. When they saw Alice, they bolted for the stairs, thanking the officers profusely. As they walked out I offered my hand to our neighbor.

"It was nice to meet you Mr. Peters, thanks."

I caught a puzzled look on his face as I walked away.


End file.
